I like to start freezing leftovers from meals I make at home about a month prior to BM. Use a freezer zip loc & you can toss them into boiling water to reheat & just throw the baggie away. No mess!
I also bring the regular stuff for snacks. Jerky, Hummas & tortillas, chips & salsa, energy bars, cheese, salami, olives/pickles, tuna, I like to jar my own salsa & dolmates as well.
I also like to bring powdered gatoraid to mix with water so we don't bring too much plastic. & starbucks instant coffee is awsome.

thank you! i tried but i am so bloody useless at using the search here i ended up trawling till i gave up. Also i didnt want to rant about not searching because i cant do it either. you win bacon VCG.

This is all I did:

click search (good start)

picked TWO words that I thought would likely appear in MANY of the posts related to food and cooking.

Typed "food, cooking" into the search bar

clicked, "search all terms"

went to the bottom left and used the pull down menu to select, "q&a, tips and tricks" because logic tells me that AntiM and the other mods will not allow a food/cooking thread to live in places like "2011 tickets." And more importantly, I foolishly trust in the ability of my fellow man to use logic.

ah vgc logic, my mortal foe- such things are anethema to me, i much prefer to mock others for not searching slowly a thread at a time like me! though i do appreciate your bringing all those threads up - i was just getting to the search stupidly stage thinking what can i by in one shop to feed me for 8 or more days i am sure tinned tuna would get dull tres' quickly

FREE THE SHERPASBurners with torches is right and natural and just.-fishy.CATCH AND RELEASE.

One thing I brought last year that was a big hit was 2 bags of cooked, frozen shrimp and a jar of cocktail sauce. It was a terrific snack right around cocktail hour (that would be 1 pm - 8pm).
I ate cheerios with soy milk all week. Always seemed good first thing in the morning and I think soy milk is less prone to spoiling than cow juice.
And listen to the advice about pickles. Bring a few jars. They're really good out there.
I didn't really cook at all the whole week. One of my campmates brought chili that he heated up a few times and that was a nice change of pace. But as others have said, you tend not to eat nearly as much out there and so small snacks seem to work best. Deli meats and some bread or pita are a good bet.

Bud "that fucking hippy" Buddah
"I'm not really a hippy, but I play one on ePlaya"

Incidentally, there's no need to try to keep cow milk fresh out there, for anyone who's interested: there is single-serving boxed milk in the juice box area of the larger, well-stocked grocery stores. It does not need to be chilled, though of course it's nicer that way.

I like the Horizon Farms organic variety; Trader Joe's came out with a variety as well.

Savannah wrote:Incidentally, there's no need to try to keep cow milk fresh out there, for anyone who's interested: there is single-serving boxed milk in the juice box area of the larger, well-stocked grocery stores. It does not need to be chilled, though of course it's nicer that way.

I like the Horizon Farms organic variety; Trader Joe's came out with a variety as well.

I also find it hard to believe that you couldn't find any answers to your questions in past posts but here goes.

1. What foods and meals have worked out really well for you and your friends?

First time - we brought a bunch of Tasty Bites as per recommended highly here. Hated them, ate once and gave the rest away. Second time - we ordered a bunch of our favorite meals from restaurants / fast food places 2 weeks before and froze everything, then reheated on our tiny one burner stove on the playa. We had hardly any leftovers. Also, pre-cooked bacon - HOLLA! So what does this teach you? That it all comes down to personal tastes and preferences. What works for some doesn't work for others.

What stores well/keeps well/is something you still wanted to eat once you're out there.

See above. Also things like pop-tarts and frozen mini quiches were great to have. Easy to thaw, hardly any clean up.

2. What did NOT WORK? What food/meal was just an abject failure?
What didn't keep/store well or was just stomach turning in the playa environment?

See above. Also - do NOT bring raw meats (this is emphasized a thousand times on Eplaya.) There is nothing worse than the smell of raw meats degenerating in the sun.

3. What did the playa make you crave? What did you wish you have, or what was a something that you loved that someone else did food-wise?

I would never have dreamed that a bucket of fried chicken would taste soooo good in the desert. First time on the playa, I was craving the saltiness of fried chicken. Second year - froze about 10 pieces of KFC which we defrosted, ate, and happily shared with several passersby who thought they had died and gone to heaven.

This is just my personal tastes and some of you would scoff, some of you would agree. Which is the whole point of what a thousand threads here tell you.

By the way - I was craving soft ice cream, and stumbled upon a camp that served soft ice cream. Oh my god, one of the highlights of the week. Another afternoon I was craving hot dogs. And I came upon a camp with a bunch of guys from Fallon, NV who were busy grilling up hundreds of hot dogs to give away to people. Another night it was 2 am, walking home in the dark, thirsty - and someone handed me a bottled water. Two minutes later, a guy approached us, said he was grilling up turkey legs, and handed us a giant dinosaur of a turkey leg. So this just goes to show you that while you can't rely on other people GIVING you food, it happens often enough to make ya smile.

Let me add one more thing that I thoroughly enjoyed on the playa - a frozen bag of giant shrimp from Costco, thawed, and served with spicy cocktail sauce. Decadent, tasty, and a must for any future camping trips. We had this for happy hour several afternoons, again shared with passersby who loved stumbling upon this gourmet surprise!

coconut water. so completely versatile in every single application you can think of. i pour it over my fucking grape nuts in the morning, and its a staple in the bar. What? Thats right, Tropical White Russians? How about the best damned Tahiti Brandy Alexander? You want that to be a "Screaming" Surfer on Acid?
Oh yeah, its pretty damned good by itself.

meats. Cook em at home. Put em in a ziploc. Freeze em.

When its my breakfast shift that coincides with early sunlight hours, I can bust out 5 pounds of bacon and 5 pounds of spicy italians in less than 13.3 minutes. Some douche last year tried to make eggs benedict, fucked up the sauce (Hello...tried to use stale wine instead of white vinegar?) and left the pan with 4 gallons of yellow jizz in my kitchen?

Lesson: If you're going to do it, do it fucking right.

fruits and veggies. whatever you craze thats social and sexy. hey, some nextdoor neighbor in 2006 brought pumpkins. heated those bitches up with a smidge of butter and some brown sugar and cinnamon....incredible.

So many great ideas here. There's 2 recurring overall themes:

1. Everybody has their favorites, big hit with the camp. So go and figure it out.

2. Bust it down, strip the advertizing and packaging. De-Americanize it down to the basic needs: food. and the minimal needed to carry it.

what worked: commissary. canned fish as per usual. shelf stable horizon milk. putting everything in plastic containers and getting rid of ALL the packaging. The containers stacked into themselves when empty. bringing no food that requires refrigeration. salt and pepper chips. small jars of pickles to eat in one sitting or share. condiment packets instead of bringing full bottles. bags of tuna. stag chilie. trader joes indian meals. fruit cups. mini everything. shelf stable everything. cereal every morning. not really eating very much. not bothering to worry about fancy meals. grilled cheese and mayo at camp for our party

what didn't: accidentally leaving my tonic cans in the tent and having them explode all over my shit. not working enough for a full com pass.

what did the playa make you crave:

i always crave, cheese, mayo, pickles, canned fish, more mayo, more cheese, more meat. I am vegan off playa.

I have a follow up question about heating cans in the sun or in your car.
I've had soda cans blow up in my car in the past.

Has anyone ever had a problem with food cans bursting from the heat?
A tin can is obviously sturdier than an aluminum can, I just don't want to screw up and end up cleaning spaghetti-os out of my vents.

TheRealMsMo1 wrote:I have a follow up question about heating cans in the sun or in your car. I've had soda cans blow up in my car in the past.

Has anyone ever had a problem with food cans bursting from the heat?A tin can is obviously sturdier than an aluminum can, I just don't want to screw up and end up cleaning spaghetti-os out of my vents.

So has a tin can ever burst on you when heating it?

-Thank you

None of mine ever have. I just put all my food in a cardboard box and leave it in my tent and it all seems to do fine.

I have a 5th wheel. I had two can explode last year. Made such a mess. And they were just sitting there in the 5th. No heating .... I think it was the pressure change from driving over the Sierra Nevada Mountain.

I used to haul truckloads of Frito-Lay chips in bags from central California to Denver, and we were required to take I-80 rather than the shorter route on I-70 -- because of the 11.000+ elevation on I-70.

But once in a while a "clever" driver would take I-70 to save time... and detonate a whole truckload of product.

Elliot wrote::lol: That reminds me -- and I cannot stop myself from telling....

I used to haul truckloads of Frito-Lay chips in bags from central California to Denver, and we were required to take I-80 rather than the shorter route on I-70 -- because of the 11.000+ elevation on I-70.

But once in a while a "clever" driver would take I-70 to save time... and detonate a whole truckload of product.